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Your main phone socket is a white plastic box built into your wall, usually in your hallway or near your front door. It’s bigger than a normal phone socket because it’s the point where the external phone line comes into your home.
It's best to connect your router to your main phone socket. You can also use your main phone socket to troubleshoot problems with your internet, particularly if it has a test socket inside. Not all houses have one, but if yours does, it'll look like one of the below:
Non NTE
NTE 5
NTE 5C
FTTC
NTE 2000
NTE 5C MK 4
Openreach can replace or relocate your main phone socket and phone line for a fee. If you need a new main phone socket or you want to move or replace your existing one, please contact us to arrange an engineer visit.
There are two types of main phone socket. The way you connect your phone and broadband depends on which one you have.
Standard main phone sockets have one port on the front, which means you need a microfilter to connect your phone or router. You'll also need to use microfilters in every other socket you're using in your home.
Pre-filtered main phone sockets have two ports on the front, which means your line is already split between your phone and broadband connection. You can plug your phone and router straight into a pre-filtered main phone socket without using any microfilters.
Your test socket is inside your main phone socket. It lets you bypass the internal wiring in your house and connect directly to the phone line outside, making it the ideal place to test your internal wiring for faults.
Here’s how to connect your router to your test socket:
If your connection improves whilst you're connected to the test socket, then the problem is probably in your home. However, if the problem continues, then there's likely a fault in your local area.
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